Is consciousness more than the brain?The physical location of consciousness is an interesting problem that has been vexing neuroscientists, philosophers, and religious thinkers alike. A key question is whether consciousness is entirely a function of the brain, or is there more to consciousness than just the individual's biology? A logical corollary is whether an individual's consciousness belongs entirely to oneself or is it something that's shared somehow with one's surroundings? If shared, then what's the platform through which it's shared? In a Big Ideas video titled, "We've Been Looking for Consciousness in The Wrong Place," Philosopher Alva Noe poses an interesting notion. Trying to place consciousness as something that physically exists within us is akin to "trying to find dancing in the musculature of the dancer or trying to find the value of money in the chemical composition of the dollar bill." Rather, he suggests that we think about consciousness as, "something that we do, enact, or perform in our dynamic involvement with the world around us." At the same time, everyone seems to agree that consciousness requires some biological basis from which to emanate from. Even the Buddha seemed to teach that consciousness is something that's experienced through the physical senses. In a blog post titled, "Rebirth and Consciousness," Dhivan Thomas Jones posts, "In conversation with Sati, the Buddha tells the monk: ‘Monks, consciousness is named after whatever condition it arises dependent on. Consciousness that arises dependent on the eye and forms is just called consciousness based on the eye; consciousness that arises dependent on the ear and sounds is just called consciousness based on the ear; consciousness that arises dependent on the nose and smells is just called consciousness based on the nose; consciousness that arises dependent on the tongue and tastes is just called consciousness based on the tongue; consciousness that arises dependent on the body and tangibles is just called consciousness based on the body; consciousness based on the mind and mental objects is just called consciousness based on the mind.' This does not give us much scope for thinking that the Buddha is saying that consciousness can survive without a body, since consciousness exists dependent on the sense-organs. Admittedly, the Buddha is here characterizing consciousness as we presently experience it. But the Buddha did not say we could experience consciousness in any other way."Jones' recounting of the Buddha's teachings resonated with something that I read about how memories are stored in the brain. This is how the website, "Human Memory," described how memory is stored: "Since the early neurological work of Karl Lashley and Wilder Penfield in the 1950s and 1960s, it has become clear that long-term memories are not stored in just one part of the brain, but are widely distributed throughout the cortex. After consolidation, long-term memories are stored throughout the brain as groups of neurons that are primed to fire together in the same pattern that created the original experience, and each component of a memory is stored in the brain area that initiated it (e.g. groups of neurons in the visual cortex store a sight, neurons in the amygdala store the associated emotion, and so on). Indeed, it seems that memories may even be encoded redundantly, several times, in various parts of the cortex, so that, if one engram (or memory trace) is wiped out, there are duplicates, or alternative pathways, elsewhere, through which the memory may still be retrieved."In other words, human memories are stored as local patterns in different parts of the brain that are further connected through a larger pattern of sequential firing throughout the brain. To simplify this further, memory is an active reenactment of connectedness among different neurons. Memory is a relationship. What if consciousness is the same? Perhaps biology is a necessary condition, but not a sufficient one to the rise of consciousness. Maybe consciousness can better be explained as the underlying dynamics of unique relationships that you develop and define with those around you _ people, environment, your own senses, and other things _ that you are connected with every day. So, while the brain is necessary to initiate and establish a relationship, consciousness is something that arises as a result of you partaking in the awareness of the relationship. Consciousness exists in between, not inside. This is close to what Noe proposes, but not exactly. This is closer to the Buddhist concept of connectedness that conditions our existence and drives our respective karmas. Like memories, consciousness is a pattern of connectedness that invades the awareness. In that sense, consciousness is a cognitive habit of awareness that arises between relationships with other entities. As such, it disappears once the biological organ of awareness dies, but the whole of the consciousness that defined the relationship cannot be said to have been wiped out in whole since other counterparts of that relationship still exists. This is incredibly empowering because it logically follows that consciousness is something that you can actively cultivate and shape. It's not something that passively happens to you. It's something that you can own by becoming more deeply aware of the relationships that you create. Jason Lim (jasonlim@msn.com) is a Washington, D.C.-based expert on innovation, leadership and organizational culture. He has been writing for The Korea Times since 2006.